Today, Muslims are mourning with the rest of us, but today they are also traumatized in ways we may not be able to imagine. Today Muslims are afraid, but not the way that I’m afraid. Attacks on Muslims, Arabs and South Asians (and Sikhs and others who “look Muslim”), already at record levels, will spike again after this. (So will all kinds of nativist, white supremacist attacks, and anti-Semitic violence, too.) Your Muslim friends and neighbors will be watching their backs more than usual today, watching out for their friends more than usual today.

Today, too, your Muslim friends and neighbors will be angry. Doesn’t bigotry and vulnerability make you angry, too? Today, Muslims around the world are condemning this hateful Islamophobic violence, while also being acutely aware that white people won’t be held to account for this violence by one of their own in the same ways that Muslim communities have and continue to experience.

And so, I’m thinking about my poem, in print at The Poeming Pigeon but no longer available online, tragically as relevant and prescient as ever. Be gentle with each other today, my friends, send message of solidarity, and think about what else you can do to make the world a better place today … and tomorrow … and the next day …

What to Do in a Terror Alert

This morning he said, “Maybe today … don’t wear that pin with the Arabic on it.”Because the NYPD is deploying extra officers on my commuteBecause this morning in Brussels….This morning in BrusselsLike last week in IstanbulAnd last month in AnkaraAnd last year in Paris and Beirut and San BernardinoAnd almost every day in Aleppo….

“Maybe today … don’t wear that pin with the Arabic on it,” he saidBecause he loves me Loves my principles but worries about my safetyLike two Sundays ago, when I got catcalled outside the train stationIt made him so quietly furiousThat last Sunday he got up early Put on his heaviest sweatshirt Because there was snow in the air and he had left his coat at workWalked me to my trainWhen he could have been warm in bedJust so no stranger on the sidewalkWould make my heart race on my commute.

“Maybe today … don’t wear that pin with the Arabic on it,” he saidAnd I didn’t, even though I made it for days like todayBecause I am not immune to fearNot above an over-abundance of cautionI fade into the fog of white facesMore often than I should

“Maybe today … don’t wear that pin with the Arabic on it,” he saidBecause he loves meAnd anyway, I lost my Peace Be With You pinBrushed off my bag a month ago on my way into the subwayA fragile thing too easily lostLike my convictionBecause I was silently relievedNot to have to make that choiceBetween conscience and securityNot to have to say, “I know it’s because you love me, but….”

Except, on the train into the cityAfter this morning in BrusselsI couldn’t stop thinking aboutThe women and men who will notHide their light under a bushelWhose Muslim, Sikh or Jewish faithOr just belief in justice and freedomWon’t let them fade into that featureless white fog

“Maybe today … don’t wear the pin with the Arabic on it,” he saidAnd I didn’t.But maybe tomorrow … I’ll be strong enoughTo wear those curling wordsPeace Be With YouThat I wear to say without speakingStand beside me.You’re safe here.

Maybe today … do me a favorMaybe today, when police are thick on the ground in your cityToday, when the airways tremble with nerves and fearDo something extra nice today in your cityFor someone who “looks Muslim”—Whatever that means—Maybe today … do something nice. Maybe tomorrow … do it again.And next week and next month and next yearWhen the news anchors have forgottenThe fear they sow today